E-Mail This Article to a Friend ROUND TWO Will the State House swallow the morning-after pill? BY DEIRDRE FULTON

Progressive leadership at the helm of a pro-choice legislature bodes well for women’s choice here in Massachusetts, as state legislators gear up to reconsider a bill that would increase access to emergency contraception (EC), a/k/a the "morning-after" pill.

The "EC Bill," as it’s informally known, would require hospitals to make EC available to rape and sexual-assault victims. It would also allow pharmacies to dispense the morning-after pill (sold in the United States under the brand name Plan-B) without a doctor’s prescription. This is good news for women who live in rural areas without nearby health-care facilities, who have difficulty getting a doctor’s appointment on short notice, or who have unplanned or unprotected sex on a weekend.

Despite the contraceptive’s proven effectiveness at preventing unintended pregnancies — it works within five days of sexual intercourse, using concentrated hormones that interfere with ovulation, fertilization, and implantation — former Speaker of the House and outspoken anti-choicer Tom Finneran thwarted the bill during the 2003-’04 session, by refusing to bring it to a House vote after it passed the Senate (see "Not So EC After All," News and Features, July 16, 2004).

On April 6, at a well-attended Joint Committee on Public Health hearing, the measure was revived. This time around, legislative supporters, reproductive-health advocates, and medical experts are more confident, mostly because Finneran’s replacement, Speaker Sal DiMasi, is firmly pro-choice and a supporter of the bill. On top of that, the legislature gained progressive voices in last November’s elections. And public awareness, thanks to educational campaigns spearheaded by state organizations such as Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, has grown.

"The climate has improved significantly for this legislation," says Angus McQuilken, PPLM’s director of public relations and governmental affairs. "Because of the change in [legislative] leadership, there’s now a clear difference in philosophy when it comes to reproductive rights."

It seems as though Massachusetts is now positioned to become the seventh state in the nation to provide expanded EC access (along with Maine, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and New Mexico). State-level measures are necessary in the absence of national policy; in 2003, in a move many considered to be politically orchestrated by the conservative right, the federal Food and Drug Administration ignored an advisory panel’s recommendation to make EC available over the counter.

Yet there are still a couple of wild cards flying around — the biggest being Governor Mitt Romney. During his 2001 campaign, Romney told Planned Parenthood that he supported expanded EC access. But at that time, he also said he supported comprehensive, age-appropriate sexual education; last month, however, Romney proposed an amendment that would require abstinence-only funds be used only in classrooms and not in educational outreach (see "Feeling the Burn, Mitt?", This Just In, March 4), a move that many viewed as a step to the right.

Given Romney’s recent attempts to court social conservatives, there’s a big chance the governor could veto this bill if it passes. So "the question will be, assuming the governor will veto, whether we can muster the two-thirds" necessary to override the veto, says Doug Petersen, one of the bill’s lead House sponsors. Petersen also took the lead on 2002’s contraceptive-coverage bill; for that measure, he points out, supporters were able to gather the two-thirds majority.

Also expect fierce opposition from Catholic lobbyists like the Massachusetts Catholic Conference (MCC), which claims the bill violates freedom of religion because it "mandates" that the state’s eight Catholic hospitals offer EC, says MCC interim executive director Maria Parker. (A 2004 NARAL study showed about one in six Massachusetts emergency rooms does not offer EC to rape victims. However, the divide does not appear to be a religious one, since some Catholic hospitals already dispense EC, while some secular hospitals do not.)

Right-wing organizations like the MCC and Massachusetts Citizens for Life insist that the "dangerous drug" isn’t just a contraceptive; because it sometimes prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, they argue that it conflicts with religious opposition to abortion. They frequently bring up RU-486, the FDA-approved medical-abortion drug.

"I think the conservative right has been very effective at linking RU-486 with the morning-after pill for political reasons," says Rebekah Gee, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. "It’s a very common misconception."

But it’s just that — a misconception. "When a woman is pregnant," Gee explains, "it is not effective."

Almost half of the approximately 6.3 million pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), in Washington, DC. Of those, almost half will end in abortion. Meanwhile, AGI statistics show that EC averted an estimated 51,000 abortions in 2000. In Massachusetts, where 25,249 abortions took place in 2002 (the most recent year for which Massachusetts Department of Public Health statistics are available), legislators have the opportunity not only to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, but also to decrease the incidence of abortion. Certainly, this should be a common goal.